


None Too Close to Comfort [Adama/Roslin]

by misscam



Category: Battlestar Galactica (2003)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-29
Updated: 2008-08-29
Packaged: 2017-10-17 12:52:12
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 948
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/177040
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/misscam/pseuds/misscam
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>He doesn't know the future and can't speak for it. But she still wants him to, wants him to comfort her with a lie.</i> [Adama/Roslin]</p>
            </blockquote>





	None Too Close to Comfort [Adama/Roslin]

**Author's Note:**

> For the Adama/Roslin Month of Love, prompt being 'comfort'. Set after "Revelations". Many thanks to lyricalviolet for beta – you're a star!

None Too Close to Comfort  
by **misscam**

Disclaimer: Not my characters, just my words.

II

There is no warmth in Earth's sun, and Laura finds herself seeking it in Bill instead; his embrace is the only heat her body seems to recognise anymore.

He's put an arm around her waist gently, but she can feel he isn't really there with her. His mind seems a little lost; she knows it isn't just Earth. There's Saul Tigh too, and Earth and her cancer and she feels very tired against it all.

Others have wandered off; some to arrange recons, some just to look for themselves, some to seek comfort in each other. It leaves Bill and her some relative solitude by virtue of not going anywhere, and she's glad. The others will return soon enough, and looking to their leaders; she just doesn't feel very much like one just now.

This is Earth. _Earth_. The name seems to pound in her head until it matches her heartbeat; it seems fitting with how much of life she put into finding this planet.

Perhaps she should have known this was not what they wanted from the moment she saw it – after all, if she was the Dying Leader, she was not meant to see Earth. The Earth of their hopes, that is. This Earth she's clearly welcome to, ruins and devastation and all.

"We should never have come," she hears herself say, a bit distantly as she's standing outside of herself. "Better to have just the hope of it than... Than this."

"We couldn't have stayed in space forever. Our ships would be run down, supplies would run out and people would be too desolate. Sooner or later, we'd have to find a planet and start having babies."  
She can't quite get herself to smile at his deliberate use of her words from such a long time ago, but she does lean her forehead against his, feeling comforted by his presence.

"I don't understand," she whispers to him. "So much of it fits the prophecies. All the things we found. All the things I saw. My cancer. It fits. Why are we finding this?"

"I don't know."

His lack of answer shouldn't be comforting, but it strangely feels like one. This too, they share.

"Maybe we're missing something," she says, thinking. "There must be something, some part of the prophecy I haven't understood, somewhere I went wrong..."

"Laura," he says gently, but his face looks hard when she looks up. "Don't."

She made him believe, she remembers. Maybe he's a little angry for that, buried beneath everything else, and she doesn't pull back when he leans in to kiss her.  
She wants his kiss to be angry - anger she knows how stand firm against, anger she can soothe - but it's soft and loving and a caress, not a challenge. She can feel the anger and tension in him just by the way he holds himself, but he isn't releasing it.

"Bill," she whispers against his lips, feeling his breath as her lips part, still smelling of alcohol. "You have every right to blame me."

"Not every want," he says simply, cupping her cheek. "It won't change anything."

He's rational and right, and she hates him a little for it; at least until she feels his hands on her shoulders and looks up to meet his gaze.

The stark loss in his eyes makes her almost cry, even if she knows she must be looking much the same.

"I need you," he says, kissing her again and holding her as if he's afraid of losing her. She parts her lips, not minding he tastes of alcohol and algae, and should have shaved a few hours ago.

He's lost his best friend to the Cylons and Earth to reality; not so strange that he wants comfort from her rather than someone to blame. She wants the blame a little, absolution through anger, but she can always find that elsewhere.

She's pretty sure they'll have a Fleet full, after all.

"I'm right here," she says, kissing the corner of his mouth, not sure whose tears she's tasting the salt of and not caring. "I love you."

They're all a little lost, she thinks. They'll just have to be lost together.

"Love you," he murmurs, lips brushing against her ear; the first time he's said it in words. He's already told her in every other way, but she still has to smile faintly.

"I'll think of something to tell the Fleet," she says, and she knows a part of her has been thinking about that ever since they landed, considering possibilities, lies and versions of the truth. Can't shut off the President, not when it's more than a role (though not the whole of her; no part ever is on its own).

He sighs, straightening a little as he pulls away and lets go of her; she feels a little bereft at the loss of contact.

"We can't lie to them," he says, perhaps remembering the lie he started it all with. It became a truth, and they're standing on it.

I can, she thinks, but doesn't say it.

"We're going to survive, aren't we?" she asks, and maybe she's asking about the two of them, and maybe it's the whole of humanity, and probably it's both.

He can't really tell her; he doesn't know the future and can't speak for it. But she still wants him to, wants him to comfort her with a lie.

"Yes," he says, his voice warm and his hand too as he takes hers. "We will."

After all, there is always the possibility it could become true tomorrow.

FIN


End file.
